Scott Carpenter Interview: The Right Stuff

Meet The Man We Should All Aspire To Be Like

I have to tell you I was very pleased in the early days to see that the Soviets had done what they had done. They were doing everything first -- and better than we were! So we used that competition to do our jobs better.

Sage advice can be gleaned indirectly from the words of men who've done amazing things. In this interview series by Jim Clash called "The Right Stuff," we share nuggets of wisdom from great men who've taken big risks in life — boxers, balloonists, test pilots, astronauts, mountain climbers, ocean divers, scientists, Olympians, race car drivers — and made the world a better place for it.

What exactly is the right stuff? Other than the name of a famous movie and book about the space race, it’s a state of mind. The term is a throwback to a time when character really counted — when men routinely risked their lives not to get rich, bloviate or self-aggrandize, but for their country, science and exploration.

Clash, a fellow and director at The Explorers Club, is a seasoned adventurer himself. In reporting for Forbes and other publications over the last two decades, he has skied to the South Pole; driven the Bugatti Veyron at its top speed of 253 mph; flown in a MiG-25 at Mach 2.6 to the edge of space; visited the North Pole twice; and climbed the Matterhorn, 23,000-foot Aconcagua and virgin peaks in Antarctica and Greenland. He has also purchased a ticket from Virgin Galactic Airways to fly into suborbital space in 2013.

A half-century ago, on May 24, 1962, astronaut Scott Carpenter blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in his Mercury Aurora spacecraft en route for three orbits of the Earth.

That trip is pretty tame by today's space standards, but back then it was real cutting-edge exploration. Carpenter was only the second American to orbit the Earth. John Glenn had been first, just a few months earlier.

Carpenter's flight didn't come off without some drama. Because of a mechanical glitch, he landed 250 miles off course in the Atlantic Ocean, and it took nearly an hour for the USS Intrepid aircraft carrier to find him.

Carpenter, now 87, never flew in space again. A broken arm and an intense passion for the oceans led him to pursue a career in aquatics.

I caught up with the maverick — a retired U.S. Navy captain and one of only two original Mercury Seven "right stuff" astronauts still alive (the other is Glenn) — on the half-century anniversary of his flight.

Appropriately enough, we met at a watch store in New York. Carpenter had worn a Breitling Cosmonaute on his historic mission. The watch has now been recreated in a limited Cosmonaute line.

Note: Carpenter is celebrating his milestone at The Explorers Club Texas Chapter June 22-23 in Houston.What sticks most vividly in your mind 50 years after your 1962 Mercury flight?Scott Carpenter: My Breitling watch [laughs]. No, liftoff is the most fun. In the days I flew, we had computers that could calculate an insertion that would last for only a few orbits. So when I heard from the ground after the booster shut down, "You've got a go for orbits," that was the high point for me.

You overshot your landing area by 250 miles, and were alone floating in the Atlantic while they looked for you. Were you worried?SC: I am criticized sometimes for this answer. I wasn't concerned because I knew exactly where I was. And I didn't know that other people didn't know. I enjoyed the quiet silence that would precede a lot of answers to a lot of questions in my debriefing. It was a fun time.

Talk about competition in the 1960s with the former Soviet Union's space program.SC: It was an interesting thing. The competition arose because of the Cold War. In those days, it was felt both by the Soviets and the Americans that preeminence in space was a condition of our national survivals. The competition was heated, but it was very respectful, each of the other. And I have to tell you I was very pleased in the early days to see that the Soviets had done what they had done. They were doing everything first — and better than we were! So we used that competition to do our jobs better. And the competition also inspired the cosmonauts to do better work.

Do you see any irony now, with the retirement of the Shuttle, that we are flying to the International Space Station aboard Soyuz rockets?SC: I am so overjoyed by the fact that the competition has now transposed itself to cooperation. Space is not an enterprise that belongs to the U.S. or to Russia or to China — it is a human endeavor and experience. And that's as it should be.